This invention relates to receptacle-type devices for use in heating or cooling baby feeding bottles, and more particularly, to a novel receptacle device which can utilize a thermal transfer fluid to provide the desired heating or cooling of the bottle.
Numerous receptacle-type devices have been developed for heating refrigerated milk, infant formula, and similar beverages, prior to serving. U.S. Pat. Nos. 820,829 and 1,785,438 describe feeding bottle heaters designed to reduce the time required to heat the bottle by employing a heat exchange fluid which is heated prior to filling the bottle heater. U.S. Pat. No. 2,137,676 describes a bottle heater in which hot automobile engine coolant is employed in upward flow through the heater. However, the efficiency of this bottle heater is reduced by the practical requirement that the hot, engine coolant is not allowed to directly contact the bottle and is separated there from by a heat-conducting wall of the heater device.
In an effort to employ hot tap water as a convenient heating fluid, U.S. Pat. No. 4,163,471 describes a bottle heater in which the tap water enters through the open top of a receptacle holding the bottle, and the tap water discharges through the bottom of the receptacle. The efficiency of this heater is reduced because the higher thermal energy of the water which enters through the top of the receptacle immediately is mixed with the remaining, entire body of water within the receptacle before it drains from the bottom of the receptacle. This contributes to a decreasing thermal energy gradient toward the device's bottom end.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,639,897 describes a bottle heater in which hot water enters through the bottom of the heater and is directed upwardly against a turbine which rotates the bottle support to provide forced circulation of the hot water before it discharges over the upper edge of the receptacle. This heater is reduced in efficiency because the hottest water inside the heater device never contacts the bottom of the bottle and is directed outwardly to the receptacle wall by the turbine.
None of the bottle heater devices taught in the prior art have enabled the economy, convenience and efficiency to be realized by employing hot water from a conventional tap or faucet which is impinged against the bottle along its length within the heater device upwardly thereby obtaining desired thermal heat exchange between such heated fluid and the fluid in the bottle.